Emily is somewhere over the Middle East en route to Australia, so Andy and Jo have been let loose on the podcast control desk — new buttons and all. The result is a slightly more multimedia episode than usual, with trailers played in and reacted to in real time, and a genuinely good conversation about what the summer's animation slate says about where the industry is heading.

Four things get the treatment. Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie has just posted the franchise's strongest opening weekend ever — $20 million domestically, $69 million worldwide — and Andy and Jo make the case that the trailer reveals a show that has genuinely grown into itself, with sharper animation, better timing, and writers who clearly love the world. The Bluey movie teaser gets an equally warm reception, with Andy's observation that it chooses a falling balloon as its centrepiece moment — the smallest thing enlarged into the biggest thing — landing as the episode's neatest critical point.

Coco 2 prompts the more sceptical conversation: both Andy and Jo loved the original precisely because it felt complete, and the worry is that a sequel risks casting a shadow over something people remember with real tenderness. The Pixar slate discussion that follows — one original, Coco 2, an Incredibles spinoff — raises the question of whether the studio is in a defensive crouch. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit rounds things off: Disney reviving a century-old pre-Mickey character in a hybrid live action and hand-drawn animation style, which Andy and Jo read as both a smart copyright play and a meaningful reconnection with Disney's hand-drawn heritage.

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Kids Media Club podcast.

I am Andy Williams.

Hello, I'm Jo Redfern, and Emily Horgan is on a plane on her way to Australia.

So Andy and I are hanging out today, and guess what?

We found some new buttons in our podcast studio.

Yes, I'm very nervous.

I'm at the control desk here, the chief technology officer.

We're gonna try and do a little bit of a multimedia episode where we play in some trailers and some clips.

I mean, who's gonna notice?

Everybody's on holiday in August, right?

We might as well have a bit of fun.

Exactly.

Yeah.

We've been let loose on the control deck.

We have, we have.

And if Emily was listening in, she'd be saying, what are you doing?

Don't press the button.

Yeah, don't press that button.

Although she did offer that she could have dialed in, but she didn't think the person sat next to her on the plane would have really appreciated.

That would have been fun.

Yes.

I think she.

She mentioned a couple of hours ago they were approaching Doha, so.

Yeah, I don't know where she is now, but, yes.

Safe travels, Emily.

So we thought we were.

We've been watching trailers actually this week on our little Kids Media Club WhatsApp group, and we've been sharing thoughts on trailers.

So hence, we thought we'd try and work some into the podcast episode today.

And, Andy, you wanted to talk about Paw Patrol because Paw Patrol have got a new movie coming out.

I did, yeah.

So Paw Patrol have got a new movie coming out.

Well, it's out at the moment.

It's just reading here Paw Patrol, the dino movie.

And it's open to $20 million domestically this weekend, which is the franchise's strongest opening day ever.

It's bad, really, given how Paw Patrol is, I'm just gonna say long in the tooth.

That's not intended to be a bad pun, but, you know, it's.

It's getting on.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

And it said it's.

It's already at the $69 million worldwide.

And what's interesting with Paw Patrol is you.

You wouldn't have immediately thought when Paw Patrol was originally a TV series that.

That its evolution would lend itself to being a family animated movie franchise as well.

And so.

So, yeah, I think that's a really interesting example of how maybe that centerpiece of the Flywheel has moved from being the TV series to being the movie now.

And.

And obviously, with Spin Masters as the studio behind, kind of underlines the relationship between the movie and the toys as well.

Yes.

And how much and how much of a driver it is for that.

Yeah, I mean, they've always been super closely intertwined, haven't they?

You don't need to scratch too far between beneath the surface to understand that Paw Patrol is built around a very specific play pattern.

But.

But yes, absolutely.

We were talking toy on last week's episode with John Bolsh.

I mean, toy is still very much a meaningful driver of revenue.

Arguably more important than never, given that revenues are under pressure from other quarters.

So it makes sense that they would have this movie.

And they've had successful movie releases before, obviously, and this one has come out and I mean, ticks all the boxes for young boys Vehicle Dino rescue play, doesn't it?

All bases covered.

It does.

It's kind of engineered for success.

It's like the dinosaurs are there, the vehicles are there, the gadgets are there.

Yeah, it's a.

It's a smorgasbord of.

Of kind of toy elements.

It's kind of very toyetic.

Shall we have a look at the trailer?

Shall we see if your new newfound button works?

Let's do it.

I've been talking around it already feeling a little bit nervous as to whether this will work.

So let's all.

Let's all kind of get a taste of Paw Pat the dino movie and have a look at the trailer.

This doesn't make any sense.

There's no island on the map.

All right, pup.

Whatever this jungle throws at us, we'll be prepared.

We are so not prepared.

Run.

I am running.

I'm a bulldog.

This is as fast as I can go.

Dino island is the greatest discovery in the world.

This is amazing.

Take this moment.

Come on, pups.

We've got an island to save.

Yeah.

No fair.

I want to dinosaur BFF Best Friends Forever.

Oh, ow, ow, ow.

Okay, stop, stop, stop.

Never mind.

Amazing.

If I wasn't already there, the Backstreet Boys involvement there was.

Sealed the deal.

I mean, just there, boom.

In at the end, the Back Street Boys.

That would look fabulous.

You know what struck me when I watched that and I saw it once before earlier today when we said we were going to talk about it.

I mean, how much has Paw Patrol come on in terms of animation and timing and humor?

Absolutely.

Another level.

Yeah, absolutely.

I kind of remember when the sort of the feature length spinoff would be, you know, it wouldn't be at that level.

That feels like you'd be happy to pay to go to the cinema to see that.

I would have been right There when my two were younger for that that, you know, got the right.

It was.

Pacing was great, the animation looks great, the humor.

Yeah.

I mean, I was super impressed and as you said, rightly, I mean, it's gotta be a good story.

Right.

You know, we say a lot that you can't patronize kids, you can't pull the wool over their eyes.

So it has to work in terms of story and character and.

But it's gotta sell the toys too.

But you can see how that would spur toy sales.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And you just got a sense from, just from the trailer, you could tell that the writers kind of understood and loved the world and the characters.

Yeah.

I think it's a class act.

Yeah.

Difficult to argue against that.

Yeah.

I mean, it feels like it's really grown up, grown into its own kind of skin and that's.

That's good, good stuff.

So, yes, definitely interesting as well to.

See that shift from.

I mean, it feels like only a couple of years ago when, and we've talked about this on the podcast quite a lot, where the received wisdom about movies was that that basically that streaming was going to take over and people didn't want to go out to the cinemas to see a movie.

And yet now it feels like it's shifted to the point where it's like the centerpiece of that flywheel that's then gonna push the toys and that whole kind of brand.

IP Flywheel is kind of really powered by the movie now.

Yeah.

And they, I mean, there's been movie spinoffs forever, but they do feel like now, particularly now we're seeing going to the cinema back in its kind of rightful place in terms of people are beginning to enjoy it again.

There's some really great movies.

It's been a really strong year theatrically, but also this idea that it's still an event, it's still a treat.

Okay, it's not as cheap as it used to be, but even preschoolers are not exempt from that special feeling when you go into the cinema and you sit down and you've got your popcorn or you've got your sweets and you're watching something on the big streets screen.

You might go and watch it another several times at home, but there's nothing quite like that feeling when you go for a day out and you all sit and talk about it in the car on the way home.

So it still has.

It's still really meaningful and I think it looks amazing.

We'll come back onto other movies shortly.

But talking about flywheels and how Important different parts of.

Of the genre, the kind of media mix are to flywheels.

Let's talk briefly about Ms. Rachel because Ms. Rachel, obviously we've talked about Ms. Rachel a lot.

Emily has done lots of analysis on the success of Ms. Rachel.

She's releasing a music album in September.

Yes.

Which again, music super powerful.

When you're thinking about preschool, IP can be quite the money spinner.

If you've got a family listening to 23 tracks of Ms. Rachel songs in the car and singing them over and over, that's the best kind of marketing that you could ever want.

So interesting that Ms. Rachel is releasing an album, but also not two days before then.

So almost going head to head.

Moonbug are debuting Ms. Applebury, who has featured is as the teacher in the cocomelon's classroom.

So now we've got.

We've got two preschool educators going head to head within two days.

Crazy.

It's like that Spider man meme where there's three spider man in the same frame and who's the real one?

I mean, I have no doubt that there is room for more than one Preschool educator on YouTube.

But yeah, on the 23rd and 25th of September, both Ms. Rachel and Ms. Applebury will be debuting new stuff.

And I thought it was quite interesting that.

I mean, we've spoken a lot about YouTube.

We've spoken about the challenges of being a Made for kids creator on YouTube.

We spoke about social media bans.

But if there's one thing that kids really love on YouTube is a good educator like Ms. Rachel.

There's been Ms. Monica.

I was watching Ms. Monica a few years ago.

I think she's still making content now.

Ms. Applebury is, is.

Is here.

So I don't think that they're going anywhere.

I think we'll probably have a few more miz and maybe misters as important parts of those flywheels coming up.

And do you think that.

Because in some ways it's a great example of how that brand ends up having a lot of different touch points from TV to music.

And the music side of it makes me feel like it.

It's really a fantastic platform to then launch a live show.

And there's a.

It kind of allows them to kind of really expand that brand across sort of multiple different platforms and venues.

Yes, it does.

Yes.

Because unlike Paw Patrol, as we were just talking about, there is not a huge amount of toy.

It's not toyetic.

I'm doing the air quote thing that, you know, Ms. Rachel, Ms. Applebury, Ms. Monica.

Because they are human educators.

There's a limited amount of toy and toy play that you can build around them.

But music is one thing that they can do really well.

And music, as we've said it can.

It can be a revenue generator, but it can be that kind of thing.

That is your walking billboard because you have it on in the car.

They're singing it while you're walking around the supermarket.

You know, it's.

It can be really, really powerful.

So I think that's, you know, that's something that Ms. Rachel has leaned into.

From what I was reading earlier, it's a full on produced album.

They've got lots of different contributors and singers and artists and so, yeah, I mean, it didn't do the Wiggles any harm.

They toured their live music show for a long time and that was pretty, pretty good for them.

Yes.

Where was the big venue the Wiggles played in the States?

Madison Square garden.

Yeah.

So Ms. Rachel at Madison Square Gardens.

I mean, why.

Yeah, it could definitely happen.

Great.

That's fascinating.

So what else was on our list to talk about?

Well, back to movies.

Back to movies again.

And talking about Bluey, the trailer for the Bluey movie, which is dropped to great fanfare and much excitement this week, but not without a degree of controversy.

I say controversy.

Small, small frisson of controversy in that.

Of course, we've got bluey in 3D CGI now, and not that delightful 2D sell action type style that we've been used to.

So I think we're going to have a quick look at the Bluey.

The Bluey trailer, aren't we?

Press your button again.

Yeah, let's.

We'll press play on this, see if it works.

I'll get it.

Good one, bingo.

Thanks, louie.

Good.

Don't let it touch the ground.

Oh, no.

Run.

I mean, who doesn't get the warm and fuzzies when you hear Bingo and Bluey?

Absolutely.

What's interesting is that, I mean, it seems to be the thing, doesn't it?

If you move from TV show into movie.

And I'm thinking spongebob.

I'm thinking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Over the years, they've all had the 3D treatment.

But I did find it interesting that some people commented how it loses a little bit of charm.

And I was wondering what you thought about that.

Yeah, and it's interesting that we were talking, talking about Paw Patrol before that didn't have any of those challenges because it was already computer animated on the TV series.

So in some ways it just looked like it was.

It had More money thrown at it.

Yes.

Elevated.

Yeah, it was elevated and amplified.

The.

The.

The stuff that was there in the original series, it just was on a bigger budget.

Whereas this one, the animation style is very.

Is a.

Is a real kind of contrast to the series.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

Are you.

The tone of voice and the.

And that humor, even within that small tease.

It's still there.

Yes.

But it's an interesting change.

I mean, I. I'm so.

I'm kind of watching it for the first time, so I'm just sort of processing how I think it might be received.

I think there's a slight danger that if people really love the 3D movie version, will it then change their relationship to the series?

Interesting.

I hadn't really thought about that.

I was looking through some of the comments on TikTok, and I mean, most of.

Most of the.

I'd say all of the comments were from parents because, let's face it, they're on TikTok and their preschoolers, unlikely to be.

So I think some of it comes from a parental point of view.

And they do love Bluey for the charm and for the 2D element of it.

Absolutely.

So I can understand that the resistance might be a personal viewpoint.

Some had said, oh, my child watched it and said, that's not the Bluey I know.

But then others really didn't care because as soon as they hear those voices that you mentioned, and it is the same heart, and one assumes it will have that within it, because that's what Bluey is all about, then I imagine after three or four minutes of watching it, you get past that and it's still the Bluey that you know and love.

I really loved the fact that you could see the texturing on the fur.

It just gives it a little bit more depth.

But then again, I look back at some of the 2D stuff, and there is just an added layer of expression with the key lines on the faces that you perhaps lose a little bit with that.

I have no doubt it will be hugely successful and deservedly so.

But it's interesting how I do wonder, do you think it's a.

Do you think it's a Hollywood thing that almost, if you're gonna get a movie, you kind of have to switch from 2D to 3D.

Is that.

Is that a thing?

I absolutely think that they think 3D is more of a.

Is lends itself more to that movie event sort of cinematic experience.

Yes.

I wonder.

I mean, interesting when you were talking about the reactions of some of the parents, because I wonder whether people's feelings.

And I kind of.

I hesitate to use the word, but I wonder if people's feelings about AI have us might color their feelings about 3D.

Because I think people associate AI more with 3D animation than they do with 2D animation.

Maybe wrong, but I wonder whether that means that they kind of feel like maybe the 2D feels more authentic or more kind of.

Yeah.

More organic than the.

Yeah, maybe.

Well, we will see.

It's due for release around this time next year.

I think late August next year.

Like I said, I don't think it will be a flop by any stretch of the imagination.

It will be interesting to see whether people do fall in love with that aesthetic, actually, and whether it sits comfortably alongside the tv or whether we'll find people saying, actually, I prefer it the other way now.

So.

Yeah, interesting one.

And young audiences are unpredictable, so you never know.

They might.

Yeah.

It's hard to predict what effect it will have, but interesting.

And as you said, even within that small clip, you get that you've got that tone of voice for the show.

Yeah.

And it's so iconic and so recognizable.

It does a lot of the heavy lifting.

And that's why I suspect that after two or three minutes of watching it, you will no longer see that because it's still the same Bluey and Bingo that you know.

And given that the writing is likely to be just the same as in the TV show, I think it will almost melt away quite quickly.

Yeah.

And what I really loved about it was that often a teaser trailer decide they.

They pick something that's a kind of the biggest moment that you could pick, that kind of teases what the movie's gonna be about.

And Bluey picks a balloon, whether a balloon's gonna fall to the ground or not, which is kind of like it's the smallest moment, but enlarged into the biggest moment.

So, yeah, that made me feel like, tonally, it feels like it's in very safe hands.

Yeah.

That's what Bluey does so well.

The episode with the rain, and she's channeling the rain down the front path of the house is just beautiful.

Okay, Coco 2.

You shared on our WhatsApp group an image of Coco 2 and questioned whether we needed a Coco 2 discuss.

Well, I mean, I love Coco 1 same.

And I know that every movie in some ways, is built to.

Is built for sequels, particularly Pixar and Disney.

But of all of the movies that I felt could quite happily just be just one perfect movie and not need to return to that I felt that Coco was a great example of that, partly because, you know, because it wrestles with the big existential questions of life and.

And I feel like it comes to a.

A very poetic kind of finish.

I don't know whether you need to pick that story up again and add another chapter, but that's the.

That's the romantic in me rather than the.

The business minded person.

So.

So I might be wrong, but that was my thoughts on it.

And also I sometimes have.

Sometimes when a character is so associated with being a child, when you then return to that character as more of a gangly teenager with a new haircut.

Yeah, that also changes.

Changes the feelings about it and makes me wonder whether you needed to do that.

Yes.

I thought it was interesting when you proposed that actually it didn't really beg for a sequel.

And I had to agree with that, really.

I absolutely adored that film.

Cried buckets and just loved it for what it was.

It was a very beautifully observed piece of filmmaking and was tied off and rounded up and I didn't feel like I needed anymore.

And almost, in a way, it was just right as it was now.

It could be that teenage, you know, in the teenage years, something else equally heartfelt and lovely is gonna happen.

The risk for me is if it doesn't work so well and doesn't invoke the same feelings as the first one, does it almost take away from the first one when currently it is just that little gem of a movie that everybody remembers fondly.

I don't know many people who didn't have a soft spot for Coco.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

There's always that danger, isn't it, that the sequel can slightly kind of cast a shadow over the original.

We'll see.

I mean, I think Emily's concern was more that it didn't warrant a live action version, but I think that maybe that may be in the shadow of Moana.

Live action, not.

I imagine so.

Yes.

No, I don't think Coco 2 should be live action.

No.

Yeah.

Yes.

So we'll see.

I don't know when it's released, but I hope they knock it out the park with the story because it's big shoes to fill.

Yes, maybe.

Maybe it's also a.

Maybe it's a sign that Pixar are in a slight.

A slightly defensive mode at the moment.

They've recently had.

They've had to let go a lot of Pixar staff.

And if you look at.

If you look at their slate of movies, there's one original and then there's Coco.

2 And then there's a spin off from the Incredibles.

So I think they're having to bolster their slate with quite a lot of spin offs from existing ip.

Yep.

It's the endless debate, isn't it?

Originals can work and can work so well, but if an original doesn't work, there tends to be a retreat back to, okay, well, we'll just do another one of X or we'll do another one of Y.

Because of the risk aversion that everybody is feeling and Wall street insisting on, you know, everything must grow the second time around.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

I wanted to.

Well, before we finish off, you brought Oswald, so Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Yes.

And so that's a Disney animation that I think is about 100 years old.

Wow.

So out of copyright.

Yes.

Well, I wondered whether there may be a copyright element to Disney reviving the character because I think by doing something with him now that in some ways you establish a new copyright over the visuals of the character.

Yeah, but yeah, so it's a 2D animation.

Looks like it's a mix of live action and, and hand drawn animation.

They've just been.

The studio that was behind Klaus involved as well.

I mean, it looks lovely.

It's.

It'll be interesting to, to hear to see a little bit more about what's involved.

And now this is an interesting one.

I, I had it.

It had popped up on my feed before you put it into our Kids Media Club WhatsApp chat.

And going back to the discussion about novelty versus another of X and another of Y, even though Oswald already exists and was a Disney creation a hundred years ago, there isn't that awareness of it.

I mean, those Disney files amongst us might have seen Oswald and read a story somewhere that it was a precursor to early Mickey Mouse, but there isn't that mass recognition.

So to all intents and purposes, this is new and it is a new way of treating a character that's in the archives.

That yes, if it comes out of copyright.

We saw what happened with Winnie the Pooh.

We've seen it with a couple of other famous examples.

But that said, the trailer I thought looked pretty neat.

We've seen how the Acme movie that had a second lease of life, I.e.

Hybrid animation, has been well received.

Best mixed media project since Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I was reading.

So Oswald seems very much to be in that vein.

And if you can bring a great funny story to bear with that, I think we actually might see a few more of those hybrid media movies coming out.

Absolutely.

And it's a way in which it's very.

I mean, it's a clever positioning from Disney, I think, because it goes back to their heritage and their history, but it also, it's also a way for them to establish.

Re.

Establish that connection with hand drawn animation, which they've moved away from a bit in recent years, and, and to kind of bring that back into.

To what Disney do and are associated with.

So I think, I think that makes.

It makes a lot of sense.

So.

Yeah, interesting.

And I mean, I love the, the, that mix of live action and, and 2D looks great as well.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I'm excited for that.

And it serves two purposes.

It's something new that Disney can play with, but also gives them an element of protection against something that is very, very old and probably very dear to them.

So it'd be interesting to see how that one comes about.

So here we are.

We've managed to make it to the half hour point we have.

And the slight kind of multimedia thing, I was worried the whole thing was gonna fall apart, but we got through it.

You've not pressed the final button for the sign off yet, Andy.

It could all blow up.

It could all go wrong now.

Be like Gonzo in the Muppets where something always used to happen when he blew his trumpet.

Yeah, I'm going to press the button and then everything's going to blow up.

Great.

But that was good fun.

We'll have to add a couple of more kind of media elements to the podcast next time.

So I hope everyone enjoyed listening and please like and subscribe and watch and listen wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you all next week.

Now I'm going to hit the outro button.

Let's hope it works.